Insight into the Catholic Faith presents the Catholic Tradition Newsletter

1. Is the Chair of Peter Vacant? An Argument for Sedevacantism
2. Fourth Sunday after Easter
3. Saint Boniface
4. Family and Marriage
5. Articles and notices

Dear Reader:
Mother’s Day is a thorn in the side of modern Society. Mother’s Day reminds them of the importance of motherhood, for even the orphaned seeks to know its real mother and only the most degraded would not give his seat to a woman with child because of the deepest sense of respect for her. But, in a world where unfortunately our youth and young adults have been de-sensitized and compromised by the basest of degradation through indoctrination in public schools and the media, these youth and young people are now repelled by the sensibilities normal persons have in their response to respecting a mother. And why?Because it reminds them of their rejection of their own value and their submission to animalistic cravings they were told they could indulge in and now have the devastating consequences that leads them to deny such a loss of reality and turn to seeking nihilistic behaviors such as contraceptives, abortions, psycho-inhibitive pills and hallucinogenic drugs that annihilate any possibility of leading a full human existence—be that of a man to be a man or a woman to be a woman.

A measure of the humanity still retained within a society is that of the societal attitude towards a mother, be the woman potentially or in actuality. It is a blessing that faithful Catholics are presented with a proper atttiude continuously and especially during the month of May when the Church honors Mary. Set upon a pedestal not as a God, but the Woman who conceives God, the Mother of God, the youngest child to the oldest man sees that Mary is reflected in each woman and each woman becomes a reflection of Mary. Honoring Mary, Catholics have particularly been led to honor every woman. When the English burned Joan of Arc at Rouen after mistreating and dishonoring her as a woman God rightly and swiftly let the undeserving French drive the English out of France. It seemed to hang over them for when Henry VIII dishonored his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and the majority of English sided with the King—despite the great Saints, such as Thomas More and John Fisher—God withdrew His grace upon that nation and let England fall into Apostasy to which salvation seems so far removed from them even to this day. The United States was part of England and was never a Catholic Nation and unfortunately the attitude towards the woman had been minimally influenced by Catholic faith—but once Vatican II rejected the Catholic position of women any truly Catholic influence at all was lost, and so was womanhood. The conservative (not Christian, i.e., Catholic) ideology surrounding the woman today is drawn mainly from nature itself by those attempting to retain, like the stoics of old, a sense of humanity. The Conciliar Church in America, fraudulently calling itself Catholic, places more emphasis on not having a murderer put to death than that of preventing a man from forcing a mother to abort her child. The Conciliar Church in America is more concerned that people who enter illegally have all the social benefits rather than that a Catholic man can support his family and take care of his children in order to preserve the family and allow the woman to tend to the rearing of her children instead of working and neglecting the children because the social benefits drain the man’s earnings and he is punished for having a family.

I pray I made the point I desire because in exalting the Mother the Son is exulted; in honoring the mother, the children are honored—rejecting the one, rejects the other. May all our mothers recognize that God has blessed them for accepting their role to be true mothers to their children and may they know that we, their children, honor them for being so wonderfully a mother.

As always, enjoy the readings and commentaries provided for your benefit. —The Editor

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Is the Chair of Peter Vacant?

An Argument for Sedevacantism

by Rev. Courtney Edward Krier

First Contradiction: The Authority of the Pope, to obey or not to obey?

(cont.)

Pius XII went on to reject freeing dogma of definition, limiting Scripture of truth and inspiration, that God can be known by reason and His Creation, that the word Transubstantiation should not be used as understood, that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same, and that there is no need to be a member of the Catholic Church. In Mediator Dei (November 20, 1947), Pius XII had already condemned:

This way of acting . . . to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the “deposit of faith” committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn. [Cf. Pius VI, Constitution Auctorem fidei, August 28, 1794, nn. 31-34, 39, 62, 66, 69-74.] For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father of their souls’ salvation. (Par. 64)

. . . But in all these matters, it is essential that you [Bishops and Religious Superiors] watch vigilantly lest the enemy come into the field of the Lord and sow cockle among the wheat;[ Cf. Matt. 13:24-25.] in other words, do not let your flocks be deceived by the subtle and dangerous errors of false mysticism or quietism – as you know We have already condemned these errors; [Encyclical letter Mystici Corporis] also do not let a certain dangerous “humanism” lead them astray, nor let there be introduced a false doctrine destroying the notion of Catholic faith, nor finally an exaggerated zeal for antiquity in matters liturgical. Watch with like diligence lest the false teaching of those be propagated who wrongly think and teach that the glorified human nature of Christ really and continually dwells in the “just” by His presence and that one and numerically the same grace, as they say, unites Christ with the members of His Mystical Body. (Par. 203)

A third ruffling of feathers, one might say, was the complete about face towards Communism and Socialism.

Angelo Roncalli, in his first acts, made Giovanni Montini, a Cardinal along with 22 others, raising the number from 70 to 74. With Giovanni Montini, he also made Julius Döpfner and Franz König his Cardinals who would be pillars of innovation. The number meant that, with the ageing Cardinals, he would be deciding his successor, but it was also an indication that Catholic tradition was no longer any concern to him, for since at least the 9th century, that is, over a thousand years, 70 was the number set based on the number Moses was told to choose to assist in the governance of the Israelites (cf. Num. 11:16ff.) and the number Pope John VIII (872-82) had set (cf. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova, et amplissima collectio, XVII, 247-248.). This is mentioned because, though not of faith and morals, it did not go unnoticed. Angelo Roncalli was separating the Church from a divine foundation, i.e., one founded on faith, to one founded on a secular foundation, i.e., modern societal considerations.It may be noted that Domenico Tardini, an obedient servant of the Church, at the same time was forced to become Cardinal and Secretary of State and promoter of Angelo Roncalli’s Council, but after everything was set in motion Domenico Tardini conveniently had a massive heart attack.

This Apostolic See, above all, has not refrained from raising its voice, for it knows that its proper and social mission is to defend truth, justice and all those eternal values which Communism ignores or attacks. Ever since the days when groups of “intellectuals” were formed in an arrogant attempt to free civilization from the bonds of morality and religion, Our Predecessors overtly and explicitly drew the attention of the world to the consequences of the de-christianization of human society. With reference to Communism, Our Venerable Predecessor, Pius IX, of holy memory, as early as 1846 pronounced a solemn condemnation, which he confirmed in the words of the Syllabus directed against “that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself.”[Encycl. Qui Pluribus, Nov. 9, 1864 (Acta Pii IX, Vol I, p. 13). Cf. Syllabus, IV, (A.S.S., vol. III, p. 170).] Later on, another of Our predecessors, the immortal Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, defined Communism as “the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin.”[Encycl. Quod Apostolici Muneris, Dec. 28, 1928 (Acta Leonis XII, Vol. 1, p. 46).] With clear intuition he pointed out that the atheistic movements existing among the masses of the Machine Age had their origin in that school of philosophy which for centuries had sought to divorce science from the life of the Faith and of the Church.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt seemed to convince the Americans that the Soviet Union had changed and Uncle Joe (Stalin) was on the side of freedom, while Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were the enemies of mankind. But, with the collapse of Nazi Germany, the Communists, backed by the Soviet Union, were taking all of Eastern Europe, threatening to take Austria, infiltrating Italy, defeating the Chinese National Army, entering into Indo-china and were now just a few miles off the coast of Florida. Many former African Colonies, having gained newly independence were drenched in blood as Communist-supported revolutionary coups were setting up dictatorships—but not one word of denouncement by the leadership in the Vatican. Instead, Roncalli wrote Pacem in terris.

Pius XII wrote to the Ruthenians (Ukraine, Poland and Czechoslovkia) on the 23 December, 1945, the encyclical, Orientales omnes Ecclesias, stating:

For we have learnt with great grief that, in those territories which have recently been made over to the sway of Russia, our dear brethren and sons of the Ruthenian people are in dire straits in consequence of their fidelity to the Apostolic See; every means are being employed to take them away from the bosom of their mother, the Church, and to induce them, against their will and against their known religious duty, to enter the communion of the dissidents. Thus it is reported that the clergy of the Ruthenian rite have complained in a letter to the civil government that in the Western Ukraine, as it is called today, their Church has been placed in an extremely difficult position; all its bishops and many of its priests have been arrested; and at the same time it has been prohibited that anyone should take up the government of the same Ruthenian Church.(Par. 56)

We are well aware that this harsh and severe treatment is speciously attributed to political reasons. But this is no new procedure used today for the first time; very often in the course of the centuries the enemies of the Church have hesitated to make public profession of their opposition to the Catholic faith and to attack it openly; they brought cunning and subtle allegations that Catholics were plotting against the State. In the very same way the Jews accused the Divine Redeemer himself before the Roman governor, saying “We have discovered that this man is subverting the loyalty of our people, forbids the payment of tribute to Caesar.”[18] But facts and events themselves plainly manifest, and show in its true light, what was and is the real cause of this savagery. For, as is well known, the patriarch Alexis, recently elected by the dissident bishops of Russia, openly exalts and preaches defection from the Catholic Church in a letter lately addressed to the Ruthenian Church, a letter which contributed not a little to the initiation of this persecution.(Par. 57.)

These griefs cut us the more deeply because while the cruel war was yet raging almost all the nations of the world, through a gathering of their representatives, solemnly proclaimed among other things that no persecution of religion must ever be undertaken. This had given us hope that peace and true liberty would be granted everywhere to the Catholic Church, the more so since the Church has always taught, and teaches, that obedience to the ordinances of the lawfully established civil power, within the sphere and bounds of its authority, is a duty of conscience. But, unfortunately, the events we have mentioned have grievously and bitterly weakened, have almost destroyed, our hope and confidence so far as the lands of the Ruthenians are concerned. (Par. 58.)

And, regarding the Communist takeovers, Pius XII condemned on June 20, 1949, those progressive Catholics who formed Actio Catholica with the support of Gottwald’s Communist government in Czechoslovakia. Then on July 1 of the same year, with the intent of warning all Catholics—even though in Italy–he had the following decree (A.A.S., Vol. XLI (1949), p. 334):

[Negative: Communism is materialistic and Antichristian; even though the leaders of the Communists profess they do not to attack religion with words, yet their teachings and actions show them to be at enmity toward God, the true religion, and the Church of Christ.]

[Whether Christians who openly profess the materialistic and antichristian doctrine of the communists, and, primarily, if they defend it or promulgate it, by that very fact do they incur an excommunication specially reserved to the Apostolic See?]

R. Affirmative.

[Affirmative.]

(To be continued)

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Fr. Leonard Goffine

The Ecclesiastical Year (1880)

INSTRUCTION ON THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

The Introit of this days Mass is a canticle of praise and thanks: Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle alleluia; because the Lord hath done wonderful things, alleluia; he hath revealed his justice in the sight of the Gentiles. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. His right hand hath wrought for him salvation; and his arm is holy. (Ps. xcii.) Glory etc.

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. O God, who makest the minds of the faithful to be of one will: grant unto Thy people to love what Thou commandest, and to desire what thou dost promise; that amidst the various changes of the world our hearts may there be fixed where true joys abide. Through &c.

EPISTLE. (James i. 17-21.) Dearly beloved, Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration. For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creatures. You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger: for the anger of man worketh not the justice of God. Wherefore, casting away all uncleanness, and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

INSTRUCTION. Of all the gifts that come from God, the most excellent is the gospel and regeneration in baptism, by which He has made us His children and heirs of heaven. How great is this honor, and how earnestly we should endeavor to preserve it! To hear the word of God, when preached to us in sermons, will aid our endeavors. The admonition of the apostle to be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, contains true wisdom, for: In the multitude of words there shall not want sin; but he that refraineth his lips is most wise. (Prov. x. 19.)

ASPIRATION Aid me, O Lord, to preserve the dignity received in baptism, grant me a great love for Thy divine word, and strengthen me to subdue my tongue and to use it only for Thy glory.